


Dragonfire

by rainphee



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Canon Divergence, Dragons, Kidnapping, M/M, Modern Fantasy, and it does its own thing too, art links included in end summary!, but there are several notable diversions, oh yeah gueira and meis r in love too its juust kinda minor, the burnish are all dragons au, this fic loosely follows the canon plot, this is also a modern fanatsy au where technology and ect are achieved thru magic, why is that such a frequent tag on my work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainphee/pseuds/rainphee
Summary: Everyone knows that dragons are a threat to the great city of Promepolis, and that they should be so grateful that the knights are there to protect them. Galo Thymos has believed all his life that as a knight, he does good by capturing monsters and 'letting them free', that dragons are always dangerous, and that his knighthood- and his king- is the best thing in the world.That is, until the most powerful dragon of the terrorist group Mad Draconic, Lio Fotia, captures him and his life- and the rest of the world- is thrown into disarray.What good can one knight and one dragon do against the whole world dying?
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	1. BURNING SOUL!

Usually, the knights’ hall that housed the Burning Knightship of Promepolis was a calm place. Today, sunlight took its time streaming through narrow windows, casting panels on the swept-clean floorboards, dancing over neatly sorted racks of armor and miscellaneous detrius from the people who worked there.

Aina’s corner, decked out with comfortable beanbag chairs and posters of her favorite pop bands. Varys’ basketball hoop, enchanted to show an accurate score whenever the ball swished through the net. Remi’s small stack of slightly too sexy manga, next to Lucia’s elaborate and sprawling witch’s setup, the table in the middle stacked high with half-finished metallic constructs and enough glass piping to support ten middle schools’ magic labs.

Even at its busiest, the knights’ hall is almost cozy- especially now, when everyone is contently working on their own projects. Aina pops a gum bubble between her teeth as Remi checks over his equipment, Lucia cackling quietly to herself over a fizzing potion while Varys absentmindedly flicks through the scryscreens.

“ _Bwip! Bwip! Dragonfire spotted in New Bridge Street! Bwip!”_

That’s all it takes. A single message, delivered by one of Lucia’s tiny constructs, each one positioned somewhere up high and modeled after the faithful rat that served as her familiar. Its eyes flashed purple, its head whirled in place, and just like that, the Burning Knightship assembled.

Their routine is practiced and professional, even with a looming threat as serious as a dragon attack. Their armor is donned, their weapons readied, the metal and enhanced fibersteels all laced with enchantments to keep the heat out and the person in. They’re a well-oiled team- even with one big tripping block.

A big, loud, blue-haired tripping block.

Galo actually _whoops_ as he barrels into the room, hands stained with potion fluid from tending to his bike, and slides into his armor as smooth as anything, moments before their Captain opens the door to his office. When Ignis looks down at them, he’s beaming.

They’re used to this by now, so used to it that Ignis barely has to look them over before determining them ready for combat. Burning Knightship is more than prepared to take any monster the world can throw at them.

“What’ve we got today!” he cheers, as the group races towards the truck. The glass of his helmet lights up with a scryscreen as Aina extends the metallic wings on her back, the runes engraved into the surface allowing her to fly. They’re on the truck and barrelling onto the busy street quickly, clearing the way with loud klaxons and flashing lights. “Dragon attack, huh? At least it’s more exciting than last week!”

“We had a harpy flock last week,” Varys replies, Lucia darting around him with manic energy as she checks over the new enchantments she’s applied. “I _hated_ those things- the human face is the worst part.”

“Yeah, okay, true- but you know how it is! Dragons are big and exciting!”

“And _dangerous_ ,” says Ignis, his face popping up in Galo’s helmet scryscreen. “Keep your wits about you, everyone. This one’s looking big.”

“Nothing we can’t handle!” Galo crows, and even though Remi scoffs, they all brighten just a bit at his enthusiasm.

Smoke billows up above the city skyline, thick and heavy, sparking with pink and blue. Dragonfire is no normal flame, it burns in strange and unpredictable ways, and the massive column is only a warning about the raging technicolor blaze underneath it. Burning Knightship skids onto the scene, where people are lying on the grass below and others are screaming. The icewards on the skyscraper’s edges are doing their best to combat the inferno, but dragons’ fire has an unusual property of breaking most magic.

As soon as they pull up and begin to prepare for launch, the arranged groups scream with anticipation, fervently relieved at their presence. “ _Burning Knightship! Burning Knightship! Burning Knightship!_ ”

That kind of attention is catnip for Galo, who immediately takes the opportunity to pop his upper body out from the top of the truck and wave. He’s greeted by elated yelling before Remi grabs his leg and pulls him back down, shoving him into a launchpad dock. “You can showboat later.”  
  
“I’m just improving morale!”

“Then improve morale when we’re done. Aina, how are we looking?”

Their helmet scryscreens flicker to life with Aina’s furrowed brows. “It’s a big one this time. It looks like we’ve got people stuck on floors thirty-three and thirty-four.”

“Verys, Remi, you know the drill!” Ignis barks, and they both nod before they’re launched with arcane precision to the floors necessary. “Aina, are the perpetrators still here?”

“I can’t tell, the smoke is too thick and the dragonfire is messing with my spells. Wait- there’s people on the roof! Shit! It’s really thick there and this armor isn’t equipped for direct fire contact. I need someone to douse it first.” 

“Galo?” says Ignis, and he beams even more.

“Ready!”

He only briefly catches a glance of Aina as he shoots past, launched a little too hard. There’s a moment when his arc slows at the top, and he’s able to see the scene below: the thick column of smoke hiding the roof, the pink and teal flames licking their way up the glass building and bursting windows with arcs of fire. The inferno is reflected off the neighboring skyscrapers in a garish gauntlet, casting its unnatural light at least a block away.

For a split second, the sun hits the smoke just right, and there’s a twisting shape in the darkness.

Then Galo lands, cracking the rooftop under his boots, right in front of a group of terrified civilians. They’re all wearing business casual, their faces and hair streaked with ash, but when they see him in his shining knights’ armor, their eyes light up.

“We’re saved!” cries a woman in the front, grinning maniacally. Galo grins back and nods at her, but despite his flamboyant nature, he knows that now is the time to get the job done.

Holding out his hand, he presses down on a tiny rune set into his gauntlet’s thumb, and only a few moments later a sparkling pole decorated in oriental fashion appears in his grasp; his trusty Matoi.

The frost enchantments immediately begin their work as he holds it aloft, blowing away the smoke with cool winds. The civilians cover their faces in the short whirlwind, but when it’s done, they’re in a circle of clear space, the smoke passing around and dragonfire put out. Aina is already on her way, but there’s technicolor fire already licking at the edges of the magically cooled safety.

“Okay, everyone, please stay calm!” Galo shouts over the crackling blaze. “My fellow Knight will be escorting you down with a featherfall, so the calmer you are the more stable it will be! You’ll be down on the ground in no time!”

It’s only when the last civilian is taking Aina’s proffered bracer when the Matoi enchantment breaks with a gust of cooling wind, stronger than before. Galo stumbles slightly, covering his eyes- but he opens them just in time.

There’s something in the smoke.

“Ohhh, Galo,” Lucia pops up on his scryscreen. “I’m getting really high magic readings in there. You might be in trouble, buddy.”

If it had been anybody else on that roof, they probably would have taken a featherfall bracer and jumped, but this is Galo Thymos, the world’s number one idiot knight. He squares his jaw and stares up at the thick smoke.

“If there’s dragons in there, we have to take them out- for everyone’s safety!” He raises his Matoi again. 

The subsequent gale is slightly weaker, but the things waiting in the smoke are not far. Tendrils of gas whip around their bodies as Galo’s foes are revealed, one after the other, looming huge above him and their scales glowing bright with a deep internal fire.

Three dragons stand in front of him, gripping a higher block of floor in the roof, each adorned with their own lengths of fire down their spines and on their legs, their bodies sparkling away in the light as if they’re made of embers. On the left, a lithe blue one, crowned with a single horn; on the right, a stout double-horned red, back bristling with inky black spines. 

And in between them is the biggest dragon Galo has ever seen. He has three horns, one jutting from his forehead, his narrow snout and long body glittering in neon shades of pink and blue. Yellow eyes and slitted pupils gaze down at him, pinning him down in his imperious sight, the blazing fire on his back emitting a corona of heat even from the distance away. As Galo watches, he subtly sneers, revealing rows of pure white teeth behind his spiky maw.

He knows who these dragons are. Everyone does, and distantly, he hears his fellow Knights gasp in his scryscreen connection.

“Mad Draconic,” Aina whispers. “Galo, you can’t-”

“If I don’t, then who will!” he cries, and the dragons before him shift on their talons.

“Hey, dumbass!” cries the one on the right, his voice unexpectedly kind of shrill. “Get out of our fuckin’ way! We’re not here to play! Are you stupid or what?!”

“I won’t let you light any more fires!”

“He really is stupid,” the blue one mutters. Their leader just watches, trained entirely on Galo, yellow eyes betraying nothing.

The pointed end of the Matoi doesn’t even come close to the dragons, but he points it anyway. Red bares his teeth, clearly more of a hothead than his partners. “All right then- you asked for it!”

He roars, deep and bellowing, rattling pebbles on the rooftops- and changes. Obsidian flows over his body, gleaming with sharp edges and thick plating, and the other dragons follow suit, their cries echoing off the skyscrapers that frame the scene. Some windows are close enough to shatter from the force of it. 

“Galo, do you wanna...” Lucia pipes up, her goggles gleaming. He grins. 

“Hit me, Lucia!”

“Hit him with _what?_ ” Remi demands. Lucia’s sharp-toothed grin, gained from one of her experimental potions, is not at all reassuring.

“We’ve been working on something on the side. Thought it might come in handy, so I applied the runes after the harpy attack last week.”

“And you didn’t tell us?” Ignis’ face is unreadable, but one of his eyebrows raises slightly. Lucia doesn’t even look a bit apologetic. 

“Yeah. Sorry. Locked and loaded, Galo!”

Red and Blue leap off their high perch, flames making twisted reflections on their obsidian armor and colors dancing in between their teeth. An inferno blazes wherever they step away, trails of unnatural, jagged flame in the shape of footprints. Above it all, twists of smoke twine around the leaders’ armored scales as he lowers himself to the ground, lounging as if what’s happening doesn’t concern him in the slightest.

“You’re trapped, Knight of Promepolis!” Red gloats, his footsteps trailing a wall of fire. Underneath his helm, Galo smirks.

He raises the Matoi above his head- and is blanketed in a cloud of ice. The prowling dragons shake it off easily, the fine snow particles melting on their heated bodies, but they can’t see their prey in the center anymore. Blue snorts and rears back, blasting a heavy stream of fire that tears through the mist, and with it comes something else.

Galo’s new armor shimmers with frost, spikes rising from the pauldrons, his heavy boots upgraded and reinforced. No longer is he a lone knight- he looks more like one of Lucia’s constructs, armored and deadly, and the mist swirls and dissipates around his form as he leaps out and strikes Blue with a sudden blast of frostray from his open palm.

On the ledge, the leader cranes his neck down ever so slightly.

“I can’t be trapped when I’m _Matoi Knight!_ ” Galo cries, and around him, the dragons snarl.

“That is _it!”_ Red roars, and launches, his talons trailing sparks. But Galo easily sidesteps him and uppercuts his thick jaw with the sparkling Matoi. He howls as he’s thrown across the roof, but before he can get back up, Galo counters with the frostray.

“Gueira!” Blue shouts, and blasts fire again, hitting Matoi Knight solidly on the back. But the flames lick across the surface and their edges freeze, crystalized fire falling to the roof in tiny cubes. He snaps his mouth shut with a huff and charges instead.

When he’s at the peak of his pounce, Galo leans back, and jabs the pointed end of the Matoi into his less armored gut. Blue screeches and spits out a globule of flame, falling prone to the rooftop, across from where Gueira is struggling to break Lucia’s modified frostray bonds. A blast of the same ray has Blue thrashing himself, his obsidian armor cracking under the strain.

Galo’s breath comes sharp and heavy in his chest, and he pants, grinning as he looks at his victories- and then there’s a crunch from behind him.

When he turns, the leader is at his back, radiating heat like a furnace. His massive body curls in on itself to keep him on the rooftop, the seams of his armor revealing glowing pink and blue scales underneath. He stares down Galo, like he’s been doing this entire time, his eyes two tiny stars, sharp and impenetrable.

Once he’s sure that he has Galo’s attention, he snorts, tossing his head. Teal-magenta flame coats him before crystallizing, and Galo puffs out his chest.

“Are you teasing me?!”

He opens his maw almost lazily, and embers spill from between his teeth. Galo takes it as a challenge.

The leader is not at all like his partners. He’s as quick as a viper and twice as deadly, his blasts of flame pinpointed and accurate beyond measure. Every time Galo lashes out, he dodges like the part of fire in the air and strikes back. They’re quickly locked in a deadly dance, evading and striking in a swift pattern. 

It’s just after another spit of flame and a pointed jab from Galo that the leader finally speaks. Ice crystals with an internal light scatter every time Galo moves, crunching underneath their feet in tiny pops of heat.

“Why don’t you just fly away!” Galo cries, sweat sticking to his skin uncomfortably under his armor-tight suit. He manages to twist out of the way just in time to avoid getting shorn in half by the leader’s razor-sharp, ice-white teeth. 

“You really must be an idiot.” The dragon’s voice is deep and clipped, the smooth voice of someone with power and the knowledge of how to use it. It sends a shudder down Galo’s spine. He can’t tell if it’s hot or cold. “You really think they’d let us leave in peace?”

“I do!”

Burning Knightship has been on Galo’s scryscreens the entire time, chattering with panic, trying in vain to convince him to get down. He ignores them all, too focused on staying alive against the leader’s barrage of attacks, but it’s a shrill shriek from Aina that finally catches his attention, her voice panicked.

“Galo! _Galo, there’s another dragon!_ ”

And the world explodes.

Galo’s vision goes white as his head rings and his scryscreen dissipates completely, the enchantments shattered by the strongest dragonflame he’s ever seen. The world proceeds to come in fits and starts, flashes of the world beyond that he can barely comprehend as he’s knocked and whirled around, his Matoi Knight armor slowly ripped apart.

A fourth dragon, flames blazing white-hot and screaming in pain, rocketing up in the sky to the horrified cries of the bystanders below-

The leader breaking his companions’ ice-shackles with his own bright fire, and then turning to Galo, prone and in danger-

Claws, burning hot but somehow not burning _him_ , wrapping around his torso, lifting him up and away, his helmet scattered on the ground where the scryscreen has recovered and his friends are calling his name but he can’t reach them, please, _let me go-_

Galo Thymos blacks out.


	2. ASHES TO ASHES!

“You really fucked it up this time, Boss.”

“I know, Meis! I know.”

Lio’s tongue lolls out from his jaws as his firey wings strain to keep him aloft. He is a powerful dragon- the strongest of their settlement by far- but even he isn’t used to carrying fully grown men for dozens of miles as fast as he can fly. Even his less burdened companions are beginning to tire, their flames guttering alarmingly.

But they can’t slow down, not while Thyma is ahead of them, long having ceased screaming bloody murder but clearly not well. Her body leaves bright streaks against the sky as she drives herself further and further, dripping globs of liquid flame, each a dazzling magenta, onto the earth below. Dragonsblood.

She’s hurt, and badly. None of them had the time to catalogue what could have possibly injured her like this, too panicked, their fires already low from donning their Obsidian Armor Scales. 

“Boss, when are you gonna drop the-“

“Shut _up._ ”

Gueira finds it in himself to look properly chastized at Lio’s harsh words. The human is hard to hold in his claws, shifting in his unconsciousness, but thankfully it seems like his head trauma sent him to sleep, and not to a comatose state inducing brain damage.

He hoped, anyway.

Lio felt more than saw it when Thyma began to falter, a chill passing through his scales as she coughed up a larger mass of dragonsblood than ever before, staining her snout pink. The next moment, she was falling. There was no warning; her wings simply fragmented away in the air as she plummeted, and the Mad Draconic gasped and angled down in a harsh dive to help her.

They were _far_ too slow to make her descent softer. Thyma crashes through the tree canopy below, hits the ground and hits it _hard_ , her long body crumpling in on itself with a sickening series of cracks and wet thumps. She started screaming again at some point on the way down, and continues when grounded, too weak to do anything else. She is a howling cadaver on the forest floor.

When they finally touch earth, Lio crumples, although much less dramatically. His larger form dissolves, leaving only the man, short and whip-thin, covered in belts, black pebbling his face and hands. His prisoner stirs on the forest floor, and Lio can only hold his head in his hands and wait for the world to stop spinning while Meis and Gueira rush to Thyma’s side.

“Hey, stop- stop screaming, it’s us! You’re gonna be okay! Thyma?”

She gurgles deep in her throat. Magenta bubbles up between her teeth and drips down to the foliage, each droplet instantly springing up tiny leaves.

Thyma’s draconic form fades slowly, but when she’s done, Lio can see the bruises and freezer burn on her tan skin. She’s stopped screaming again, and somehow that’s worse. Her entire torso is soaked with her own blood.

“...Mad Draconic?” 

Lio’s eyes dart to the side, where his prisoner has finally woken up. His head is aching something horrible, but he stands as quickly as he can, calling his weakened fire to his palms. “So you’re awake.”

“I guess? Wait- wait, you’re...?”

He snorts derisively. “My name is Lio Fotia. I’d appreciate knowing who _you_ are.”

His eyes widen. “You _are_ the dragon. But you look...?”

 _How much do they even teach the people meant to capture us in that godforsaken city?_ “What, you thought we were just huge monsters all of the time? Your name, idiot Knight.”

“...Galo Thymos.”

Lio doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have the time. Meis rushes up to his side, similarly human-looking, face drawn and reserved. “Boss.”

He barely has to look to know that the worst is happening, but Lio’s heart still falls out of his gut when he sees how gray the claw-tipped ends of Thyma’s fingers are. He reaches her in seconds and falls to his knees by her side, pulling her up to his lap.

“What’s happening? What’s wrong with her?”

Gueira snaps to Galo’s face, mouth set in a fierce snarl that sharply mimics his draconic form’s bared teeth. “Fucking dipshit- what do you think? She’s hurt because of you and your Knightship-“

“Gueira.” Lio’s voice is soft but nonetheless commanding, trained on Thyma’s face. She looks so, so tired, face stained with garish blood.

“I- I can help. I’m a trained EMT. I don’t know any runes or anything, but I can manage the basics. Let me help.” _That_ manages to attract Lio’s attention, eyes flicking up to Galo’s determined stare.

“No. It wouldn’t work anyway.” 

“You can’t just-“

Lio closes his eyes, fractures his mind into hundreds of tiny crystalline shards, and breathes, in and out.

He’s had to do this more times than any dragon should have to in their lives. It’s hard. Fire is part of a dragon the same way their heart and eyes and lungs are- an irreplaceable organ tucked deep in their bone marrow and dancing in their blood. But it’s still _fire_ , and sometimes cinders need a little extra heat to roar to life.

The flames catch on his teeth and dance on his tongue, and he keeps them there as he leans down and presses his mouth to Thyma’s.

There isn’t any passion in it- it’s a wholly functional movement, but all the while, Lio’s hands are shaking, knuckles white as he grips her wrists. She is still and unmoving beneath him, and he prays, fervently, to forgotten draconic gods, that the fire in her body will catch alight with the help of his own. It has to work. They’ve lost too many, and Lio is the strongest, the toughest, the hottest. What he does works. It has to.

When he pulls away, his lips are sticky pink with dragonsblood, and the taste of it heaves bile to the back of his throat.

Thyma’s eyelids flutter once, twice, three times. There’s a pulse under Lio’s fingers, faint but there, and he hangs onto it. Meis and Gueira watch, their shapes in the corners of his vision like looming carrion birds, and he feels Galo’s eyes burning into the scene.

The world holds its breath, like it always does whenever a dragon dies.

She exhales for the last time, and Lio pulls away with ash on his hands.

They watch in silence as Thyma’s body fades, her skin crumbling into fine dust, face finally serene and free of hurt in death. Wind rustles through the trees, a faint breeze picking up the dragon’s resting place, and the faded pink ash of her body whips away into the sky.

Already, plant life is beginning to poke its way through what’s left of her. Ashes to ashes. Earth to earth. Dragons give back tenfold when they die, and their graves are, always ironically, full of life. 

Sometimes their corpses have more life than the dragons themselves ever had, nowadays.

Lances of thick sunlight break their way through the treeline, making the glade into a cathedral of high columns and rustling leaves. It’s a good tomb, Lio thinks. Thyma would have liked it- she loved the spring, the sparse forest a short flight away from their city. She would spend hours trying to get plants to grow in the harsh volcanic dirt, turn Igneous into a thriving, leafy metropolis.

“May your ashes bring hope,” he murmurs. Meis and Gueira bow their heads and repeat the sentiment.

When Lio finally looks up again, Galo is watching, his eyes wide and face slack with sadness. “She turned into...”  
  
“Ash,” Lio snaps. He’d normally have a little more tact, but right now he was aching, deep in his heart and fresh in his muscles. They’d lost another one, and they hadn’t even managed to get the supplies _or_ the information. Thyma’s death had been in vain. “When we die, dragons give back to the earth. Do you know _nothing_ about us?”

“I didn’t know,” Galo whispers. “Why... why did you take me? Why didn’t you burn me?”

Lio wasn’t in the mood to answer more questions, but he sighs and sparks a flame from his fingers, flicking it onto Galo’s shoulder. He flinches violently- maybe he would be safer if he put a shirt on, but alas- but soon realizes that the ember of dragonfire isn’t hurting him. He leans in closer, instantly curious, and Lio’s flame catches the blues and reds in his eyes.

“We are not one thing, Galo Thymos, any more than humans are,” Lio says, standing over him, slitted eyes glowing with pinpricks of light deep within. “Our fire can destroy, but it also heals. We’re not mindless burning machines, no matter what that madman King of yours would have you believe. You would have died had I not taken you, and you should be grateful.”

Galo stares up at him with an emotion Lio cannot identify, but does not back down. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But King Kray is not mad! He’s the best ruler Promepolis has ever had!”

Lio’s eyes widen, and he lets the burning spark flare, enough to singe Galo’s nose. “Are you a complete idiot, or do you really believe that?”

“I do!” Galo shouts, ignoring the new reddened skin on his face. “I know he’s a good man- the best!”

Gueira and Meis have been working alongside their stronger companion for many years now, and can read him like an open book. Lio is a subtle person, his mannerisms clipped and countenance cool. It takes a long time to learn the intricacies of his emotions, the tiny movements belying his true feelings. They knew long before that he was utterly brimming with rage.

But there’s nothing subtle about the way he surges forward, grips Galo by the throat, and hoists him above his head, fangs bared and eyes sparking with flame. He thrashes in Lio’s grip, clawing at his hand.

“Keep living in denial,” Lio snarls, “Even when Foresight has been abducting innocent dragons, murdering us and freezing our ashes, some people are too brainwashed to think for themselves...!”

“He- _wouldn’t_ -“ Galo chokes out, but there’s a note of uncertainty in his voice, a fragility hidden deep down. All of the air is knocked from his lungs as Lio unceremoniously drops him, shakes out his hair, and is suddenly a massive beast again, breathing heavily.

“You’re coming with me,” Lio rumbles. Behind him, Gueira and Meis similarly shift. “You’re my prisoner, Galo Thymos. Don’t forget it. Get on.”

It takes a lot for Galo to clamber onto Lio’s long back, resisting the urge to flinch away from the fire, but when he’s seated, the flames lick over him like warm water at the beachside. Triangles of distant heat catch on his fingers, and the dragons take flight, their wings materializing from their backs in fingers of flame.

The last thing they see is Thyma’s grave, rich with plant life, alone in the vast forest.


	3. FIRE AND DUST!

“Welcome to Igneous,” Lio rumbles underneath Galo’s hands several hours later. “Don’t make an ass of yourself.”

Galo’s been keenly aware of everything ever since he climbed onto Lio’s back, surrounded by the flickering warmth of dragonfire. He’s been traveling faster than he ever thought possible, the scenery speeding by so quickly it seems to blend into itself, streaks of oil on a painting. The only landmarks he could properly see were the smeared needles of the forest below and, far away, the peak of some lonely, icebound mountain.

The volcano is a behemoth on the horizon that quickly begins to loom larger and larger, until it swallows up half the sky with its massive girth. Everyone in Promepolis knows about this volcano- Haephestis, a supermassive, located the closest to the city out of any peak in its range, but still far enough that it doesn’t quite show up on the skyline.

Galo remembers hearing about how the bubbling magma has been relatively dormant for years, content with roiling in the crater at the very top, but the heat signature still throws huge splotches of misleading color onto flame-charmed maps.

It’s no wonder, then, as the Mad Draconic angle lower and begin to approach Haephestis’ slopes, that the form of a great dragon city appears before Galo’s eyes.

The entire side of the volcano has been painstakingly hewn into a series of tiers, each one crowned by heavy-sloped stone houses. The buildings are grey and blocky, but have a hidden grace to their curves, made with care and precision. Past their entrances, the structures jut directly into Haephestis’ face, implying hidden tunnels beneath. 

Everywhere Galo looks, the oilslick sheen of draconic obsidian- gleaming with a prism of color on its jet black surface- holds things together or decorates windows and roof tiles, giving the city an unearthly glimmer.

Even before they land, however, Galo can tell that something is wrong. Too many of the houses stand cold and empty, the paper lanterns floating outside them dull and unlit. Entire sections of the city are dead. 

That doesn’t make any sense. Knights don’t kill- they have never killed. The monsters they capture are released far away from any humans, to live the rest of their lives in peace. King Kray promises that he saw each and every one off, especially the dragons...

Galo has never seen him do it personally, of course. Those matters are left to Freeze Force.

_ Keep living in denial. _

Once they’re on the ground, Lio reverts almost sharply back to his humanoid state, only stopping long enough to let Galo slide off his back before he’s stumbling. Galo reaches for him instinctively, but he catches himself on one of Gueira’s back spikes, trying to slow his breathing with deep lungfuls of volcanic air. How much had trying to save Thyma taken out of him?

They aren’t alone for long. Someone comes out of the nearest lit house, drawn by the noise, a person dotted with black scales and with a stubby green tail. “Lio?” they say, questioningly, and apparently every single dragon in the city sector hears them, because before Galo even knows it, there’s dragons popping out of homes and sprinting down streets, crowding the members of Mad Draconic and their new prisoner.

He’s never seen so many dragons in one place. Lio, Gueira and Meis are subject to a million chattering questions, fielding each one with a short answer and tired smile, clearly used to this. Each and every dragon has a different range of their draconic traits on display- some are indistinguishable from humans, while others have flaring, firey hair and thick patches of scales on their limbs. 

Even with their massive variety, however, it’s easy to tell that these people have fallen on rough times. Many have bandages peeking out from under their threadbare clothes, many more with visible bruises and heavy shadows under their eyes. Compared to them, Lio and his boys look like paragons of health, and he nearly fainted not five minutes prior.

“Did you get the stuff, Lio?” asks an older dragon. He sighs deeply. 

“No, I’m sorry. Some... no, a lot of things went wrong on this one.”

“That where you got the human?” yells a kid next to Galo, who stares up at him with wide orange eyes. He blinks at her, and she blinks back. 

“Yes, it is-“

“Lio?”

The crowd falls silent.

A young draconic woman, just barely taller than Lio himself, is gently nudged to the front of the throng. She’s dotted with pink and black, her long brown hair in a tangled ponytail at the top of her head. Medical tape holds the bandages at her arms together, the edges stained a sickly magenta. 

“Hes,” Lio murmurs.

“Where’s Thyma?” she says, so quietly that the wind almost drowns her out. “This was her first mission.”

Lio says nothing. What could he possibly say? What could he do to make this even the littlest bit better- this cycle of death that came, over and over again, into their lives, tore apart lovers and families?

He closes his eyes and looks away. Hes closes hers too, and gives a choking sob.

And Galo watches, watches Hes fall apart at the seams, just another in the crowd who had lost someone she loved. Just another casualty in a city full of dead people.

It doesn’t take long for the dragons to leave after that, heads bowed, only whispering to each other. It feels like a funeral, as someone gently takes Hes’ arm and leads her away to cry in private. Lio has not moved, spare for a brief flick of his wrist that dismissed Gueira and Meis, who walked away arm in arm and cast suspicious glances back at Galo the entire time.

“I bleed for my people,” Lio says, voice trembling, eyes still closed. “I bleed and bleed and still they fade away to ash in my claws.”

“I’m sorry,” Galo says. It’s woefully inadequate.

They stay there for a moment, dragon and knight, choking down grief in an empty city.

“We didn’t even get the food,” Lio murmurs after a long, long while. “There’s only so much we can scrounge from the forest to feed all of us...”

Galo tilts his head. “Doesn’t the far side of Haephestis have rich ashlands? We studied the layout in training, the land over there is supposed to be really fertile. Why not get food from there?”

Lio’s gaze is indignant. “You really don’t know?”

“Know... what?”

His eyes harden, and he starts to walk, leaving Galo to scramble after him. An... enemy? he recognizes in a lonely city is better than no one at all.

“I hope you’re ready for a hike, Thymos,” Lio says over his shoulder. 

Lio’s direction quickly leads them up the slopes of Haephestis, where paths have been worn between sharp crags, almost invisible unless you know where to look. They climb and climb, the dragon once not looking back at his companion, who begins to sweat profusely in the increasing heat as they got closer to the crater top. Galo feels grateful, not for the first time, that his Matoi Knight armor removed him of his shirt.

The rocky path leads to a small plateau, still far below the bubbling magma at Haephestis’ peak, but high enough that the world spread out below them like a tapestry. Galo takes a moment to catch his breath, wiping sweat from his forehead as he joins Lio in looking over at the far side of the volcano.

He freezes dead in his tracks as soon as he can see it.

What Galo had once known as fertile lands, kept alive by thick ash from long-ago eruptions, was entirely and completely dead. Dry, barren earth tinted a sickly yellow-gray stretches as far as the eye could see, broken up only by the skeletons of trees and deep crevices in the dirt. No animals called, no birds flew. It was the world at its deadest, leeched entirely of  _ anything _ , nature or magic. A desert brimmed with life compared to this stretch of utter and complete wasteland.

To Galo, it was like looking into the eyes of death itself. Maybe it was. He staggers back, clutching his stomach, trying to hold back his vomit.

“The ashlands are gone,” Lio says, gaze locked onto the faraway horizon. “They didn’t stand a chance, not when the Blight crept up and swallowed them whole.”

“How... how could this happen?” Galo whispered, aghast. “It- it doesn’t make sense- this place-”

“I don’t know any more than you do. The Blight has been creeping over the earth for years, and it seems to get stronger every day. We keep it back as best we can with our dragonfire, but-” Lio shakes his head and tears his eyes away. “Every day, another one of us goes missing. Every day, King Foresight and his Knights take another dragon. We are low on numbers, Galo, and the Blight does not stop for anyone.”

Galo just stares out at the death of the planet, the slow creeping demise, and he swears he sees the Blight’s territory expand before his eyes.

Just a bit.

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY this work is gonna be a bit unusual compared to my other longform fics, being that i dont have it pre-written before i start posting. im just gonna post chapters when i'm done with them and i dont know how long its gonna be, nor do i have the entire details plotted out. i'm really just vibin with this one
> 
> is this fic because i really like the technological setting of promare but also want more dragons? Yes.
> 
> if u wanna shout at me for any reason, or see the art i'm gonna make for this au, check me out @rainphee on [tumblr](https://rainphee.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/rainphee)!
> 
> UPDATE 3/25/20: here's what the mad draconic [look like in this au](https://rainphee-art.tumblr.com/post/613598311601111040/mad-draconic-the-dragon-forms-of-the-mad)!  
> UPDATE 4/5/20: here's what galo and lio [look like in this au](https://rainphee-art.tumblr.com/post/614598705461542912/dragon-and-his-knight-more-designs-from)!


End file.
